Quantitative trading turns data into systematic signals that are backtested and then traded with defined risk. The data bar is higher than for discretionary research, because every bias in the history ends up in the backtest.
Stock market data provides the prices, volumes and corporate actions every strategy depends on, from end-of-day bars to tick data. Alternative data adds signals that may lead fundamentals, provided they are mapped to tickers and delivered point-in-time. Earnings and analyst estimates supply consensus expectations, revisions and surprises, which are among the most studied inputs in systematic equity strategies.
A typical workflow
- Ingest history and align identifiers across sources.
- Build features with strict point-in-time rules.
- Backtest with realistic costs and out-of-sample periods.
- Trade live with monitoring for data delays and drift.
What to check before you buy
Ask whether history is point-in-time or restated, how delisted securities are handled, how identifiers change over time and what delivery latency to expect. Check that corporate actions are applied consistently, that timestamps carry time zones and that the live feed matches the history format exactly.